The midday sun blazed over Bare village, but the heat that lingered in the air was nothing compared to the heaviness in people’s hearts. Two days had passed since three young farmers were killed in a violent attack by armed men, yet the air still pulsed with grief and fear.
Men sat in groups, deep in deliberation, while children lingered quietly around their mothers in front of their homes. The quiet was not peace—it was mourning.
A few nights earlier, the rice fields on the outskirts of Bare, a rural community in Numan Local Government Area of Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, had turned into a killing ground.
The night the harvest turned deadly
A few days earlier, Peter James, 24, secured a job harvesting rice on a commercial farm. He invited his friend, Cyprian, 20, and ten others to join him. It is the height of the harvest season in Bare, when labourers often camp overnight in the fields, working by moonlight. It’s a source of livelihood for many young people in the community.
But that Tuesday night, Nov. 4, the serenity of the farmland was shattered around 9 p.m.
“We were gathering the rice into bags when we heard gunshots,” Peter recalled, his voice unsteady as he spoke from a mat in his father’s compound. “The people appeared out of nowhere. When they came closer, we realised that they were herders. They didn’t say anything or take anything. They just opened fire on us.”
Peter said he recognised them as herders because some have grazed their cattle within the community for years.
In the chaos that followed, Cyprian was hit in the neck and collapsed beside him. Peter felt a burning pain in his cheek and arm—gunshot wounds. Somehow, he fled into the darkness and staggered home, bloodied and half-conscious, arriving close to midnight.
“I heard a scream outside, and when I went out, I saw my son staggering. His face and his shirt were covered in blood,” 49-year-old Gloria James, Peter’s mother, told HumAngle.
The farm lay an hour’s walk from the village, but Peter’s injuries slowed him to a crawl, taking him two hours. Gloria raised an alarm after she saw her son, and villagers mobilised a rescue team. By the time they arrived at the farm, the gunmen had vanished. Cyprian was dead. Two others were critically wounded.
They carried the injured back to the village and buried Cyprian the next morning. Both wounded men died later that day.
There are currently no security operatives stationed in the community. After the incident, members of Bare reached out to the police station in Numan town; officers came, assessed the situation, and left, promising to follow up.
When contacted, Suleiman Yahaya Nguroje, the Spokesperson for the Adamawa State Police Command, told HumAngle that he had not yet been briefed on the incident. “I will let you know if I have any information,” he said.
No arrests in connection with the attack have been made yet, according to residents and local leaders who spoke to HumAngle.
A pattern of violence
The attack is the first reported in Bare this year and is part of a long, bitter struggle between farmers and herders in the area—a conflict that residents say has festered for nearly a decade. Bare and neighbouring communities like Mararaban Bare have seen repeated cycles of bloodshed, often triggered by disputes over land and water.
When HumAngle visited Bare, the District Head was away in Yola, the state capital, attending a meeting convened by the Adamawa State government over the recent violence, so we spoke with his representative, Anthony Duwaro.
Anthony said that the locals lived peacefully with the herders who settled in their communities for generations. One herder we met during a trip to the area in October is 40 years old and has lived there all his life.
The herders have their settlement about half an hour away from Bare. Anthony said they traded and used resources together. But things changed in 2017, during the harvest.
“We went to the farm and realised that they led their cattle into it. We confronted them, and that’s when the problem began,” he recalled.
Since then, clashes have become almost predictable. “It happens every harvest season,” Anthony said, lifting his shirt to reveal scars from a previous attack. “We report to the authorities, but the cycle continues. Now, people are afraid to return to their farms.”
Despite several reconciliation meetings between both sides, he said the latest attack on the young men proved that the conflict was far from over. “One time, the clash was so brutal that people lost their lives, farms and properties were also destroyed. Most of us were rushed to the General Hospital in Numan,” he recounted.
With no police station nearby, only one in Numan town, several kilometres away, villagers rely on local vigilantes for protection. The community’s police outpost was burnt down during a similar incident in 2018 and has not been restored.
Anthony described the conflict as a “battle of survival”. “We depend on farming to feed our families. They depend on grazing for their cattle. But when the cattle destroy our crops, we can’t just fold our arms. If we confront them peacefully, they retaliate with attacks.”
Several peace talks have been held between the host community and the herders, yet tensions remain unresolved. Just a week before the latest attack, locals accused herders of grazing on their farms, further heightening the conflict.
While the herders have not claimed responsibility for the killings, they say worsening environmental pressures are making it harder for their cattle to find feed. “We do not wish to provoke anyone; we are only after the welfare of the cattle,” Alhaji Ngala, the chairperson of the local herders’ community, told HumAngle in an interview before the recent attack.
He blamed the clashes on the loss of “traditional grazing routes”. “If we can have access to routes and enough water supply, then our minds will be at peace,” he said.
Another herder, Muza Alhaji Shenya, who has lived in the Bare area for two decades, said industrialisation and farmland expansion have pushed them onto the highways as they go in search of water and greener pastures.
HumAngle recently reported how nearby Mararaban Bare has faced its own crisis due to the contamination of the only local water source by cattle waste. An uneasy arrangement now exists: locals use the river in the morning, and herders use the water in the afternoon. Still, residents say they need to treat the water before drinking or cooking with it.
“There has never been a time when we confronted the herders except when they led their cattle to our farms,” Anthony said. “We don’t have a problem with them.”
A national crisis
The struggle in Bare mirrors a broader crisis playing out across Nigeria’s rural and urban communities. In July, a HumAngle analysis showed how pastoral life is collapsing due to climate change, farmland expansion, and urbanisation in Nigeria. This situation is forcing some herders to cross to neighbouring countries in search of food and water for their cattle.
Authorities have attempted various interventions, but with little success. In recent years, several state governments have enacted anti-open grazing laws, requiring herders to rent land for ranching, which has been protested by some associations of cattle breeders.
Although the Adamawa State has not passed such legislation, officials announced in December 2024 plans to establish grazing reserves “as a measure to bring an end to farmers and herders clashes in the state”.
The idea is not new. In 2019, the Nigerian government introduced the Rural Grazing Area (RUGA) scheme to establish designated settlements for herders nationwide. But the initiative was derailed by mistrust and controversy, and later suspended by the former President Muhammad Buhari’s administration.
A few months later, another intervention, the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) was inaugurated to “create a peaceful environment for the transformation of the livestock sector that will lead to peaceful coexistence, economic development, and food security…” The Plan, whose first phase execution was budgeted at ₦120 billion, has not been actualised.
“If implemented properly, [the NLTP] could resolve many of these issues,” said Malik Samuel, a Senior Researcher at Good Governance Africa, who researches armed violence in the country. “Ranching is the most effective alternative. Moving cattle around will always spark conflict.”
Grief remains
Back in Bare, the national debate feels distant.
Chrisantus Bong sits under a tree surrounded by relatives murmuring words of comfort. A few metres away, beside a silo, lies the grave of his son, Cyprian.
The sixty-one-year-old told HumAngle he is still struggling to accept the loss. He said if he could turn back the hands of time, he would have prevented him from going to the farm that night.
While he struggles with his grief, he fears that more tragedy lies ahead. “They have taken others before. They took my son this time. They might take someone else tomorrow,” Chrisantus said.
Residents say the killings have left the community paralysed by fear and anger.
“We have reported this issue countless times to the authorities,” Chrisantus added. “The perpetrators are not strangers. They live around us and should be interrogated.”
Peter is healing from his gunshot wounds, but the emotional scars remain. Cyprian was his closest friend, and he watched him die. “I saw the bullet pierce his neck,” he whispered. Peter’s mother said he has hardly left his room since the attack.